Civic and hometown pride shine at Pamlico Heritage Day

Siretha Jones and her granddaughter Nykayla Best check out a miniature donkey named Minnie Pearl.

Bill Hand/Sun Journal

By Sue Book, Sun Journal Staff

Published: Saturday, October 5, 2013 at 08:08 PM.

GRANTSBORO — Hundreds of people from Pamlico County and beyond took advantage of a beautiful fall Saturday to celebrate the heritage of a colonial county.

The 9th Annual Heritage Day at Pamlico County Museum and Heritage Center may have had expanded draw from museum exposure by a PBS special on UNC-TV a week ago, and again at 8:30 p.m. Friday, said Pat Prescott, executive director.

Raffle tickets for a Farmall Tractor to be given away also brought people in early, arriving from several counties away to get tickets before 8 a.m. as event sponsors began to set up their tents outside.

Whatever lured them to the event headed by Brent Stokes, Pamlico County Arts Council president, they found something to smell, taste, hear or see that connected them to the past of a county with strong agricultural and fishing roots.

Walking up to the museum they were greeted by a flatbed skiff called “Finn-ished,” and a forged steel anchor so heavy it destined to stay without too much from the gold-shirted Pamlico High School Navy ROTC which provided security, traffic control, and general assistance.

Those who had never seen corn ground had a chance to join Roy Brinson and even turn the grinding wheel themselves, like a Wake County mill man who marveled at the screens to separate various grinds from chicken scratch to grits.

Popping corn was the job for the fifth year of state Sen. Norman Sanderson, R-Pamlico, who said, “I gave them the popcorn machine hoping I’d get out of it but they keep calling me to bring my oil and keep popping. It’s pretty good too.”

GRANTSBORO — Hundreds of people from Pamlico County and beyond took advantage of a beautiful fall Saturday to celebrate the heritage of a colonial county.

The 9th Annual Heritage Day at Pamlico County Museum and Heritage Center may have had expanded draw from museum exposure by a PBS special on UNC-TV a week ago, and again at 8:30 p.m. Friday, said Pat Prescott, executive director.

Raffle tickets for a Farmall Tractor to be given away also brought people in early, arriving from several counties away to get tickets before 8 a.m. as event sponsors began to set up their tents outside.

Whatever lured them to the event headed by Brent Stokes, Pamlico County Arts Council president, they found something to smell, taste, hear or see that connected them to the past of a county with strong agricultural and fishing roots.

Walking up to the museum they were greeted by a flatbed skiff called “Finn-ished,” and a forged steel anchor so heavy it destined to stay without too much from the gold-shirted Pamlico High School Navy ROTC which provided security, traffic control, and general assistance.

Those who had never seen corn ground had a chance to join Roy Brinson and even turn the grinding wheel themselves, like a Wake County mill man who marveled at the screens to separate various grinds from chicken scratch to grits.

Popping corn was the job for the fifth year of state Sen. Norman Sanderson, R-Pamlico, who said, “I gave them the popcorn machine hoping I’d get out of it but they keep calling me to bring my oil and keep popping. It’s pretty good too.”

They could also watch Bud Daniels over a big iron wash pot heated with a fire down below that he called “the original Kenmore” who, while he was doing the wash the old way Saturday, recalled “my job was to pump the water and, on hot or sunny days, get up before the sun did to do it.”

Former Pamlico schools superintendent, George Brinson’s demonstration of how tobacco, the cash crop of early farmers, was harvested and cured before mechanization was also a draw, new to the young and a spark to the memories of older festival goers.

The kids also had games from the 4-H Club and laughter from Joy Carawan as “Giggles, the Clown” with her pig character “Chow-Chow.”

Old time music, gospel, blue grass, old western, and country, filled the air with various local groups performing most of the day, all calling what they did ‘a labor of love.’

The goodies from ‘Grandma’s Bake Sale,’ all home baked, and hot dogs and barbecue sandwiches, were donated to raise money for Pamlico County Museum and Heritage Center, an impressive museum which was open free for all to see Saturday.

Some people also stumbled onto their deeper roots, like Jackie Wilkinson Howard of Fairfield Harbour. While talking with Fairfield neighbor Donald Eastwood telling about bumping into a first cousin and using database of Pamlico County Families.

Howard said she met a man at the festival who has her grandparents’ marriage license and, later, that she found new leads to great-grandfather Pucket Wilkinson.

Asked if it was worth the trip, Howard said what most appeared to be feeling: “It’s always worth the trip.”

Sue Book can be reached at 252-635-5665 or sue.book@newbernsj.com. Follow her on Twitter@SueJBook.